The Wardlaw Home is one of several historic summer homes in Dunwoody and Sandy Springs, Georgia. It is located at 1741 Houghton Court in Dunwoody on 6.5 acres, bordering Trowbridge Drive and Forest Springs Drive in the Dunwoody Club Forest neighborhood. Much of Dunwoody Club Forest was once part of the property owned by William C. Wardlaw. The current owners have maintained the home and gardens since 1981 and are hopeful that in the future the home will not be demolished or the property subdivided. There is a great amount of history in the property, which extends to the history of Atlanta, the Coca-Cola Company and Trust Company Bank, Truist Bank today.
According to the story shared by William C. Wardlaw IV, born in 1938 and known as B., his grandfather won a large parcel of land and a shack that stood on that land as the winnings from a poker game in the 1920’s. The long driveway leading to the home began on Mount Vernon Road.
Let me go back to the first William Clarke Wardlaw in this family. The first in the line (his father was Robert Henry Wardlaw) is William C. Wardlaw, born in 1837 in Abbeville, South Carolina and died in Atlanta in 1893. He married Mary Josephine Thompson. One of their sons was named for his father, born in 1874. He married Gertrude “Birdie” Sheperd and they had two sons, William C. Wardlaw III born 1906 and Platt Wardlaw, who died at a young age from leukemia.
William C. Wardlaw III married Ednabelle Miller Raine in 1928. At the time of their marriage, the Georgia Tech graduate was working at Guardian Trust Company in New York. His father had managed the fifth District Federal Reserve during World War I. (Montgomery Adviser, Dec. 18, 1928)
William Wardlaw Jr. built a new home on the property in the 1930’s but continued to call it “The Shack.” He had the home built from heart pine on the property. Pine is used both inside and outside the home and the roof is constructed of ceramic tiles.
B. Wardlaw spent a great deal of time at the Dunwoody country home. He shares some of his memories in his book “Coca-Cola Anarchist.” His parents had built a Georgian brick home at 93 Peachtree Battle Avenue, but B. preferred his grandparents country home. “… the place where I really lived was at The Shack, my grandparents warm country home and the 240 acres of virgin forest in which it lay. Acquired in the 1920’s, the property was a half hour north of Atlanta, near Dunwoody.” Today the home is within the city of Dunwoody.
B. Wardlaw’s father William Wardlaw was an executive with Trust Company Bank and later started his own investment firm, Wardlaw & Company. He was an avid supporter of Georgia Tech for over fifty years, and Mrs. Wardlaw continued that tradition after his death. The Wardlaw Center, which is adjacent to Bobby Dodd stadium, was made possible due to her generous donation. The Wardlaws also supported the Atlanta Speech School, Piedmont Hospital, and Scottish Rite Hospital.
The Coca-Cola commection goes back to William Wardlaw Jr., who helped Ernest Woodruff raise the money to acquire a controlling interest in The Coca-Cola Company. Ernest Woodruff’s son, Robert Winship Woodruff, was elected president of the company four years later.
Dunwoody was a popular place for executives living in Buckhead and Atlanta to build a summer home during the 1930’s. Current owner of the Wardlaw Home Dr. Paris says the closer location of Dunwoody as compared to the north Georgia mountains or Georgia beaches was convenient for bankers who sometimes worked long hours or Saturdays. Other bankers with summer homes included Baxter Maddox, Mills B. Lane Jr. and William Akers.
Dr. Paris learned more about the heyday of the home when a long time caretaker paid him a visit. The caretaker told of how up to one hundred guests would visit on the weekends, to enjoy the swimming pool with changing rooms, waterfalls, and beautiful plantings. Those guests included the Atlanta business leaders of the time, including the Woodruff family.
Wardlaw took great joy in his gardens, which included over ten thousand wild azaleas, trailing arbutus, yellow violets, ferns, trillium, Virginia bluebells, and rhododendron-just to name a few.
When Birdie Wardlaw died in 1968, her son and wife sold all the acreage except 6.5 acres. That 6.5 acres is where the Wardlaw home, The Shack, still stands.